Bray Wyatt, a third-generation professional wrestler who rose to become a WWE superstar and unhinged heel beloved by arenas around the world, has died. He was 36.
Paul “Triple H” Levesque, the promotion’s chief content officer, announced Wyatt’s death on Thursday. “Just received a call from WWE Hall of Famer Mike Rotunda who informed us of the tragic news that our WWE family member for life Windham Rotunda–also known as Bray Wyatt–unexpectedly passed earlier today,” he tweeted.
“Our thoughts are with his family and we ask that everyone respect their privacy at this time.”
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A cause of death was not immediately shared.
Born Windham Lawrence Rotunda in 1987, Wyatt was following in the footsteps of his grandfather, father, and two uncles when he dropped out of college to pursue wrestling full time.
After a year of wrestling on the indie circuit in Florida, he was called up to NXT, WWE’s developmental roster, where he worked under the name Husky Harris. He debuted on the WWE’s main roster in 2010 as Harris, then bounced back to NXT to develop a new persona—Bray Wyatt.
Wyatt debuted on the main roster with a vengeance in 2012. The charmingly deranged leader of the backwoods-dwelling Wyatt Family, Wyatt feuded with some of the promotion’s best and brightest, including famed Superstars like John Cena and CM Punk. Over the next six years, he would claim a WWE Championship and two Universal Championships.
In 2019, Wyatt came back from a hiatus with a fresh dimension to his mythos: the evil entity known as The Fiend, a nightmarish and Krueger-like clown capable of twisting another wrestler’s reality with a simple mantra: “Let me in.”
From that point on, Wyatt and The Fiend were two sides of the same coin. The former, now professing to be a cuddly children’s entertainer, would often appear as the host of a show called “Firefly Fun House” that was equal parts Mr. Rogers and “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.”
The Fun House was a pocket world within the WWE Universe where Wyatt could build out his intricate lore with an array of delightfully creepy puppets. But also, while The Fiend was handling things in the ring, it was a purgatory where the wrestler’s enemies could be sent to be tormented.
Under blood-red lights and blood-chilling music, The Fiend would beat his enemies—Cena, Seth Rollins, Braun Strowman—down savagely. His character concerned himself less with trivial matters like “winning” and “losing,” and more with how much pain and misery he could inflict.
It proved to be one of the most original storylines of its time and, paradoxically, a cathartic balm in the era of “empty arena” matches that followed the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But The Fiend also became an increasingly polarizing figure in wrestling fandom, with many complaining that his supernatural invincibility—including in one memorable Firefly Inferno Match that saw him survive Randy Orton immolating him—took the edge off his matches.
Released from WWE in 2021, one of the the last times Wyatt appeared in an event for the promotion was last October. At that month’s Extreme Rules, the wrestler insisted he’d turned over a new leaf and divested himself of The Fiend—though signs that his sinister alter ego still lingered on the edges of his fragile psyche remained.
That didn’t stop him from delivering an emotional promo, however. “I just wanted to say thank you. You all saved my life,” he said, tears in his eyes as he gripped the microphone. “Every time I tried to run away, you found me.”
He was still in the midst of developing this new storyline in February when health issues pulled him away from wrestling, according to ESPN.
Dwayne Johnson was one of the many wrestling legends who paid homage to Wyatt on Thursday night. “I’m heartbroken over the news of Bray Wyatt’s passing. Always had tremendous respect and love for him and the Rotunda family,” he tweeted. “Loved his presence, promos, in ring work and connection with @wwe universe.”
“Very unique, cool and rare character, which is hard to create in our crazy world of pro wrestling. Still processing losing the goat, Terry Funk yesterday and now Bray today.”
Wyatt is survived by his four children, his partner, WWE ring announcer JoJo Offerman, and his ex-wife, Samantha Rotunda.
